A qualitative analysis of nonoffending partners’ experiences and perceptions following a psychoeducational group intervention

The present research is a qualitative study analysing therapeutic letters written by the nonoffending partners of men who have perpetrated child sexual abuse, after completion of a psychoeducational group intervention. It sought to identify themes relating to their experiences post-intervention. Findings indicated that the intervention contributed to women having increased insight into sexual offending, and feeling more confident and empowered. In addition, they displayed an awareness of risk issues, and an intention to play a role in helping to manage their partner’s future risk. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.     

Public Policy in the Party City: The Spectacle of Culture,Gender, and Locality

The article explores the bidding process for the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) award, an aspect of local regeneration policy reliant upon a specific conception of culture. The process is examined in terms of changes in urban layout, manifestations of cultural and community identity, media representations, and the spectacle of culture, gender, and locality. The process is viewed as an urban managerialist project, driven by private and public sector elites in pursuit of economic rather than cultural goals. A narrow and particular view of culture was employed in the bidding process to achieve essentially managerial goals, and cut adrift from significant issues of gender, identity, and class. “Culture,” as conceived within the ECOC process, is viewed as a policy product of local government, regeneration partnerships, government agencies, and business interests, in contrast to culture as a way of life or lived urban experience. As an elite process, the voices of local culture were largely excluded.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Stretching a third of the way around the globe, the Asia Pacific is the world's most populous region. Yet, it remains the sole region without a human rights court or commission, and without a human rights treaty. The notable absence there of a human rights mechanism based on such institutions is often explained away by reference to the region's size and heterogeneity, the constituent states’ reluctance to interfere in the affairs of others, and the existence of rivalries. Whilst agreeing that there is no inter-governmental initiative that looks set to change the present state of affairs in the Asia Pacific, this article places the spotlight on another model of creating a regional human rights mechanism, that is, the unique and burgeoning Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions. Specifically, it assesses the prospects for Japan, Taiwan and China – three key regional players whose membership of the Forum is still outstanding – to create domestic human rights bodies that eventually join.     

Legal Emotions: An Ethnography of Distrust and Fear in the Arab Districts of an Israeli City

Recent sociolegal scholarship has explored the role of emotions in lawmaking and policymaking on security and crime issues. This article extends this approach to the relationship between law enforcement and affect by addressing the role of policing and security agencies in the (re)production of long‐term emotions, which bind a collective and fuel ethnonational division. An ethnography of the distinct emotional climate within the Arab districts of Lod, an Israeli city, shows that this climate is structured by two emotions: rampant distrust toward friends and neighbors, and intense fear of the Israeli authorities. This emotional climate is the product of the subterranean ties of Lod Palestinians with the Israeli security agencies as well as their experiences of the blurred line between state security and crime control enforcement. I embed the initial creation and relative stability of this emotional climate in the broader relationship between the Israeli state and its Palestinian citizens from 1948 to the present. The article concludes with a discussion of how the law enforcement's affective production has consequences for the salience and scope of citizenship and by arguing for a greater focus on the link between law enforcement, collective emotions, and processes of inclusion and exclusion.     

Unequal Laws and the Disempowerment of Women in the Labour Market: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

Institutions are defined as the set of rules that govern human interactions. When these rules are discriminatory, they may disempower segments of a population in the economic spheres of activity. In this study, we explore whether laws that discriminate against women influence their engagement in the economy. We adopt a holistic approach where we explore an overall measure of unequal laws also known as legal gender disparities and relate it to several labour market outcomes for women. Using data for over 59,000 firms across 94 economies, we find that unequal laws not only discourage women’s participation in the private sector workforce, but also their likelihood to become top managers and owners of firms. Suggestive evidence indicates that access to finance, property ownership, business registration, and labour market constraints are pathways by which legal gender disparities disempower women in the private sector.     

Notes and topics

The European Union's difficulty in functioning is to a large degree a result of its decision-making mechanisms, which expose any measure to a veto by a scant minority or even a single state. A flexible model of Europe, one of differentiated integration, attempts to overcome this deadlock. The flexible model is based on the simple and reasonable idea that a member state which dissents is not obliged to associate itself with a certain initiative, but cannot stop the others from carrying it out. Under certain “virtuous” conditions, flexibility would not involve the risk of breaking up the Union. On the contrary, it would offer dynamic instrument for reconciling the requirements of unity and diversity and promoting the process of European integration.     

Development and Implementation of Trauma-Informed Programming in Youth Residential Treatment Centers Using the ARC Framework

This project describes application of an evidenced-based, trauma-informed treatment framework, Attachment, Regulation and Competency (ARC), with complexly traumatized youth in residential treatment. The processes of implementing the ARC model into clinical and milieu programming at two residential treatment programs are described. Particular attention is paid to system-level processes and strategies for embedding ARC in a sustainable manner. Pilot data demonstrated a significant relation between use of ARC and reductions in PTSD symptoms, externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and the frequency of restraints used across programs. Preliminary findings contribute to an emerging empirical basis for the ARC model and are supportive of its clinical utility as a practice in the residential context. Next steps include: a) expanding the study findings by conducting controlled efficacy research, b) examining system level variables as mediators of change, and c) describing the full operation stage of implementation of the ARC framework.     

Cohabitants, Property and the Law: A Study of Injustice

With cohabitation outside marriage becoming increasingly common, the law's response to the problems that arise on separation has become a key issue for public and family policy. This article draws upon the findings of a qualitative empirical study of how property disputes are handled when cohabitants separate. It argues that the unfairness of the current law is best understood as stemming from a failure to recognise the situation that arises as one of unjust enrichment. It shows that the complexity and unpredictability of the law make it difficult to bargain effectively in the shadow of the law. It suggests that the need for reform goes beyond the introduction of a discretionary regime, such as that proposed by the Law Commission, to reform of conveyancing and property law and practice to facilitate initial, as well as post-separation private ordering.     

The Laffer effects of a program of deregulation cum detaxation: the Italian reform of labour contracts in the period 1997–2001

We examine the Laffer effects of the policy of social security tax reduction cum partial deregulation of labour market undertaken in Italy in the period 1997–2001. Laffer effects of tax cut are generally delayed and governments responsible of the reform cannot benefit from the resulting increased revenues when in office. Our empirical findings show that tax cuts combined with policies of liberalization determine almost immediate Laffer effects. In terms of coherent supply-side political programs, the effects of the two measures are not separable. Reflection on our results may broaden the scope of the supply-side policies of deregulation and detaxation.

Gender equality and the electoral system in the regional council of Sardinia

This article provides an account of the process followed by the legislative assembly of the autonomous region of Sardinia, the regional council, to change its electoral law. More specifically, this article will focus on equal access to the elective office at the regional council that the electoral law should have guaranteed. The introduction of measures of gender equality is part of the broader process of change in the electoral law of Sardinia. It is also part of the wider review process of Sardinian autonomy that finds its roots in the amendment of title V of the Italian Constitution of 2001. Following these reforms, constitutional law 3/2013 states that ‘In order to achieve the balance between men and women in representation’, the new electoral law should ‘promote a new equal opportunity in the access to the office of regional councillor’ (article 16). The introduction of double preference for male and female candidates would have guaranteed equality, instead of reserving a share of seats to the underrepresented sex. It would have involved a new approach to the problem of underrepresentation of women. At the 20 June 2013 meeting, however, double preference was rejected in a secret ballot. Yet only four years later, on 21 November 2017, the electoral law was changed to guarantee equal access for women.